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ACADEMIC STAFF
Prof Ioannis Papakonstantinou - Professor of Photonics & Nanofabrication
Ioannis received his Diploma in Electrical and Computer Engineering from National Technical University of Athens and his PhD in Optical Interconnects from University College London in 2008. In 2008-2009, he worked for Sharp Laboratories of Europe, investigating sub-wavelength diffractive films to improve the brightness, uniformity and power consumption of liquid crystal displays. He joined CERN-European Organisation for Nuclear Research in 2009, to work on optical fibre links for the distribution of timing-trigger and control signals in the Large Hadron Collider. He was appointed as a Lecturer in the Electronic and Electrical Engineering Department at UCL in 2011, where he founded the Photonic Innovations Lab. He was promoted to Senior Lecturer in 2015 and to Professor of Photonics and Nanofabrication in 2018.
RESEARCH STAFF
Lingxi Li - Research Fellow
Lingxi’s research interest is computational modelling of light scattering of nanostructure and small particles. He received his bachelor’s degree from Xi’an JiaoTong University in China. He received his Master and Dr.-Ing in Mechanical Engineering from Technische Universität Darmstadt (Germany) under the supervision of Prof. Dr.-Ing Cameron Tropea. His thesis work focused in light scattering of small particles for developing the optical measurement technique for the particle characterization. He joined the Photonics Innovations Lab in July, 2021 to work on vanadium dioxide based devices for thermal management. He is currently working on the European Research Council (ERC) proof-of-concept grant PolyCool.
Souvik Ghosh - Research Fellow
Souvik Ghosh completed his Bachelor of Technology and Master of Technology degrees in Optics and Optoelectronics (First class, 1st rank) from the University of Calcutta, India in 2012 and 2014, respectively. He was a recipient of the Erasmus Mundus Doctoral scholarship and SPIE Optics and Photonics Educational scholarship (2017) for his PhD (2018) in Photonics. His research was focused on the design and optimisation of active and passive integrated photonic waveguides and resonators. He was a postdoctoral research associate at the City, University of London, and worked on fibre grating and fluorometer sensors for the detection and monitoring of heavy metal ions in water. In September 2021, Souvik joined the Photonics Innovation Group, UCL as a post-doctorate researcher and is currently working on maskless photo- and electron beam lithography and nanoimprinting for the micro and nanofabrication of advanced photonic structures for sensitive document security features. Souvik is currently working on the Defence and Security Accelerator (DASA) project Banknote Security Features in collaboration with the Bank of England.
Usama Zulfiqar - Research Fellow
Usama joined UCL as a research fellow to develop superhydrophobic coatings and porous materials for radiative cooling and self-cleaning solar cell applications. He is a materials scientist who graduated from the University of Manchester in 2021, where he worked with bp plc. to engineer materials for separations. Usama uses chemical synthesis methods to engineer porous materials and thin films for energy and environmental applications. He is a member of the royal society of chemistry and the institute of materials, minerals and mining. Usama is currently working on the Royal Academy of Engineering Frontiers for Engineering project Self-cleaning coatings for targeting solar energy and water supply mismatch in India and Brazil.
PHD STUDENTS
Alessandro Rossi
Alessandro graduated at Universitá della Calabria (Cosenza, Italy) in 2017 in Physics after a short Erasmus+ experience working at Zernike campus (RUG, Groningen, NL) working on thin films characterization. He obtained a MSc in Physics 2020 at Universitá della Calabria with a Thesis work on Pt-HOPG heterostructures and electrochemical deposition by conducing the experimental part of this work at Georgia Institute of Technology (Atlanta, GA, USA) for six months in 2019. In October 2020, he joined Pi-lab to work on a multi-departmental project on innovative X-ray Phase Contrast Imaging, focusing mainly on the nanofabrication side of the project. Alessandro is currently working on the EPSRC funded Nikon-UCL Prosperity Partnership on Next-Generation X-Ray imaging.
Zhijie Xu
Zhijie received his bachelor degree at Beijing Institute of Technology (BIT, China) in 2016 in Mechanical Engineering. He obtained an MSc in Photonic, Mechanic and Electronic Micro Nano Manufacturing in 2019 from BIT at Laser Micro/nano Fabrication Lab where he focused on micro/nano fabrication method with spatially modulated femtosecond laser. In October 2020, he joined Pi-lab to work on luminescent solar concentrators (LSCs) applied in horticulture. This project is aimed at developing a new type of LSCs to realize spectral conversion and high outcoupling efficiency. Zhijie’s PhD is sponsored by the Chinese Scholarship Council (CSC).
Email: zhijie.xu.20@ucl.ac.uk
